James Creelman’s description of Porfino Diaz is overwhelmingly positive, as he opens his excerpt with a description of Diaz’s facial features and. Initially, I thought that the primary source was a piece of romance literature about Mexico because of the beauty that is depicted of the landscape and Diaz. However, it seems that Creelman is just incredibly respectful of Diaz, who he states is a ‘masterful genius’ because he turned Mexico – forcibly – into a ‘democratic’ country.

Creelman explains how Mexico has been transformed into an idyllic democratic country because of the increasing national treasury and ability for trade. He quotes how when Diaz become president Mexico’s yearly “foreign trade amounted to $36,111,600… To-day her commerce  reaches the enormous sum of $481.363,388” (136). This increase in trade income is amazing, and illustrates Diaz as Mexico’s light after many years of violent wars.

Moreover, Diaz invested into a “ten thousand mile railway” (137) which not only helps trade, but helps to bring a sense of national identity to Mexicans as they have easier access to all of Mexican environment. As well as this, Diaz established a successful school system, which allows an increasing amount of pupils to attend school, from the previous “4,850 schools… [it has grown to] more than 12,000 schools” (136). This will help the development of Mexico, because of the increasing intelligence of the younger generation.

These descriptions of all of Diaz’s successful work in Mexico is hard to fault, as it depicts a man who seems to just genuinely care about the people of Mexico. I’m not sure if the previous primary sources have made me into a pessimistic person, but after reading I felt like it was a trap. Why was everything suddenly positive?

After thinking about it, I looked back at Diaz’s speech to Creelman and managed to find some areas of criticism for his regime. He talks about “enforced peace” (132, 135) on the people of Mexico when he initially came into power. How he had to transition the people into a democratic system, which poses the question, is Mexico’s democracy founded on fear and resisted support? Especially when Diaz talks about the people of Mexico, he only appreciates the middle-class as they are clever enough to understand politics but not greedy enough to desire more power.

Another question I have about his regime, is whether or not it can be defined as democratic, as he has been the only President, there is no opposing party and he states himself how he will help guide the next president on how to act similar to him. This type of democracy seems to be very similar to a dictatorship to me.